Monday, December 03, 2007

The fate of Jerusalem is discussed, and an Israeli ‘archaeologist’ pulls another archaeology story out of his ass (from the extreme right-wing Zionist Shalem Center, no less). This time, it is a wall mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah. Of course, what they ‘discovered’ is a wall they already knew about, with some old shards dating from the approximate time of the Book of Nehemiah in the vicinity. Since the shards weren’t found in strata above the wall, or in strata above a floor attached to the wall, they are useless in proving anything about the age of the wall. The Christian Zionists are dumber than rocks, so the story will be good enough for them. Note that this version of the AP story, written by Regan E. Doherty, contains a final sentence that makes no sense as it contradicts the earlier comment of Professor Finkelstein, a real archaeologist (I highly recommend the Salon article on Finkelstein and post-Zionist archaeology, which notes that Finkelstein has been described as – yes, you guessed it! – ‘anti-Semitic’ because his research implicitly undermines Jewish racial superiority claims and ties of such claims to the legitimacy of the State of Israel).